Hi Brian, Firstly thanks for the videos you've posted and the tutes online. I know you were high but I noted that you dont wear a wrist alti and your chest alti was never visible on camera. How were you keeping track of altitude loss during that whole scenario?

In those days, I used a chest mount altimeter for all my skydiving, including test jumps. I relied on two audible altimeters for on-the-fly information. Now I use a L-n-B "Altitrack" on my hand, and I am very pleased with the unit in every way. It records essential data, and gives me a readout as I am looking up at a malfunction. Awesome technology, awesome company.

How hard was it to not pass out from the Gs you had to have been pulling? And if you had, would your AAD have saved your life?

Do you know what caused that malfunction that day? Or is it just one of those "Yeah sometimes that just happens" kind of things?

I'm sure that at 15000 jumps, you have a slightly different perspective on "safe" than I do with under 100 heh heh heh. That's definitely on my "not-to-do" list.

I never felt like I was blacking out. I felt disoriented, especially at the time of rotational reversal, but I felt aware enough that I would have been able to chop at any time. I just chose not to.

My Cypress would most likely not have saved me had I blacked out. It is not designed to do that. The SPEED edition Cypres that I fly with would not have exceeded the decent rate firing criteria. Even if it did fire, I would be risking a main-reserve entanglement, as the AAD does not cut the main away. I doubt anyone would buy an AAD that did.

As far as the cause of the malfunction, it was a packing error. A few friends pitched in and packed me up the night before as a favor while I was debriefing my class. It appears that the bag got spun before going into the pack tray. It happens. Had I not been wearing a belly camera, I believe I would have gotten the twists out quickly. I usually do. I have only needed to cutaway one line-twist, and I have experienced quite a few. I also pull much higher than the average jumper.

I had a worse spinning malfunction. I was jumping springo 140. It was packed by me, same way as hundred jumps before. When I tossed PC, I looked up and 3 center cells were sniveling and canopy already had 7-8 twists. I was bringing risers together and scissoring my legs but very soon I was on my back (canopy was in stalling and spinning). I have to cutaway fast as I have Pdf reverse risers (they are hard to pull after force increases). I felt like reserve was opening in horizontal speeds as I had been sling shooed. After main was recovered I found that one line was pulled under twists. I suspect one line was snagged on velcro of factory diver. As container looks good (PdF Legend). I guess I'll never know.

Looking at the top of the risers, you can see that the right ones are about 1" 'longer' than the left. In this situation I would immediately grab the right risers and give them a good yank to try and even them up. Your thoughts on this?

Please, you or anyone remind me where was some first_hand info on burning toggles in lineTwist.

Some burnable toggle that is.

If I understand your question, by "burning toggles" I assume you means melted brake lines. The spectra material has a low melting point, 297 F, so if you unstow your brakes in a linetwist, you are likely to melt them together. The firsthand evidence of this was a few years ago at Skydive New Mexico in Belen. Danny, one of the senior jumpers at the dropzone, had this occur while I was there teaching a canopy course.